Friday, April 29, 2016

Blog Tour: A DOG EAT DOG-FOOD WORLD by C. Suresh

A Dog Eat Dog-Food World by

C. SureshA Fablery Publication

MY REVIEW

Disclaimer:
I received a PDF format of this book from the author via The Book Club in
return for my honest review.

The
book is an impressive effort by C. Suresh to ridicule the way marketing
functions in our world. The story follows the life of Spike, a hypochondriac. He
has a doctor on call round the clock. His wife is fed up of his imaginary
illnesses. Unable to take it anymore, the doctor and Mrs. Fortune come up with an
idea – to get Spike busy.

That’s
when the good doctor suggests that Spike starts his own business. Energised by
the idea of losing money, Spike gives his nephew Jerry the shock of his life
the next morning when he insists that Jerry “find him a business”.

After
being chased by dogs within an inch of his life, Jerry comes up with a “brilliant”
business plan – to sell dog food. And pseudo history begins...

The
book has been written in excellent, flawless English and makes for an
interesting read, funny most of the time.

What
I couldn’t relate to was the way the author is “telling” the story as it’s
mostly a narration. I found that a bit odd for a work of fiction.

Anyone
who is a fan of PG Wodehouse will enjoy reading this book.

Blurb

A hilarious pseudo-history of marketing management, which explicitly denies resemblance to any actual history, and which will be horrified if some semblance be found. ‘A dog eat dog-food world’ is the story of a man who discovered that the path of life is strewn with treadmills and, if you get on one by mistake, you could keep running all your life to stay in the same place. The story of how just minding your own business can lead to unexpected consequences, guided by the ‘invisible hand’ of long dead economists. Anything you learn from the book – be it the basics of marketing management or a satirical view of Society – you do at your own risk.

The tale only dogs the doings of Spike Fortune who only sought to feed dogs and Jerry Fortune who, being fortuneless, gets dragged helter-skelter by his uncle Spike’s careening pursuit of commercial success; Spike’s rival Tom Rich, who is unwillingly dragged into upstaging Spike and tries to do it by teasing the palates of cats, helped by the bumbling efforts of his nephew, Jasper Rich who would rather be chasing girls than chasing cats.

Fiction has been an addiction but the need to make a living took Suresh through Chemical Engineering and a PGDM at IIM-Bangalore and, from thence, to a long 16 year stint in the area of finance with specific expertise in fertilizer subsidies and a further two years as consulting expert in the same area. That, in his words, about sums up the boring part of his life, except for the people he was privileged to meet.

Otherwise, he can be described as a mess of contradictions – a bookworm but avid trekker; alone but never lonely; enjoys solitude but loves company; lazy but a perfectionist, the litany is endless. Trekking, which side-tracked him from the writing for which he quit his job, is a major passion and he does, at least, one trek in the Himalayas every year in addition to numerous local treks.

He reignited his passion for writing with a fairly popular blog www.jambudweepam.blogspot.in. The blog has been rated among the Top 5 humour blogs in India, twice in succession - in 2014 and 2015 - by BlogAdda, and has also been listed third among the Top Humour Blogs by Baggout.

He also has a short story published in a collection “Uff Ye Emotions” and has edited and written a novelette in an ebook anthology “Sirens spell danger”